Author: Andres-Papazian

ISRAEL’S OMBUDSMAN IN YEREVAN

04:07 pm | July 13, 2010 | Official

President Serzh Sargsyan today received Ombudsman of the State of
Israel Mikha Lindenshtraus. The head of state attached importance to
the development of multifaceted relations with Israel in all spheres
of mutual interest.

The President welcomed the cooperation established between the Human
Rights Defender’s Office of Armenia and the Ombudsman’s Office of
Israel and attached importance to exchange of experience.

From: A. Papazian

SUMMER SCHOOLS FOR TOURISM AND PHARMACEUTICAL STUDENTS

Aysor
July 13 2010
Armenia

Striving to improve the quality of tourism/hospitality and
pharmaceutical education as well as to bridge the gap between the
knowledge provided by higher education institutions and the needs
of employers, the USAID Competitive Armenian Private Sector (CAPS)
Project, in collaboration with the American University of Armenia
Extension Program, will conduct Summer Schools for Tourism and
Pharmaceutical students on July 12-30.

Over 40 second, third, and fourth-year students representing European
Regional Academy, Yerevan State College of Humanities, Yerevan
State Armenian-Greek College of Tourism, Service and Food Industry,
Russian-Armenian (Slavonic) University, Yerevan State University
(YSU), State Linguistic University after V. Brusov, the Armenian
Tourism Institute, Yerevan State University will attend the Summer
School for Tourism Students. Likewise, 30 pharmaceutical students of
Yerevan State Medical University after M.Heratsi, YSU Department of
Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Mehrabyan Medical Institute will take
part at the First Summer School for Pharmaceutical Students.

The training participants will acquire knowledge and skills in
their disciplines, discuss the needs of relevant specialties, learn
best practices of setting up businesses in their fields, develop a
strategic plan and collaborate with foreign partners. The classes will
be conducted by CAPS specialists and managers of leading organizations
in the fields. Upon completion, the graduates of the Summer Schools
will receive certificates of participation.

“This initiative aims to develop students’ knowledge,
contribute to heightened awareness of practical issues
of concerned fields of study, as well as promote greater
cooperation and understanding between academia and private sector of
employers. Additionally, this is an excellent networking opportunity
for students of different educational institutions majoring in the
same discipline,” Anush Shahverdyan, CAPS Workforce Development
Specialist says.

All those interested are invited to the opening of the Summer Schools,
which will be held on Tuesday, July 13, at 3:00 pm at the American
University of Armenia P. Avedisean Bld. (40 Baghramyan Ave.) 4th floor.

From: A. Papazian

AZERBAIJANI, ARMENIAN LEADERS AVOID CONTACT AT SUMMIT

Journal of Turkish Weekly
July 13 2010

YEREVAN — The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan avoided
face-to-face talks on the sidelines of an informal summit of seven
former Soviet republics held in Yalta, Ukraine over the weekend,
RFE/RL’s Armenian Service reports.

Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian’s office said the summit
attendees discussed ways of boosting “economic integration”
within the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). It reported
no separate meetings between Sarkisian and other participants, who
included Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Russia President
Dmitry Medvedev.

Sarkisian and Aliyev have often used CIS summits for negotiations
on the conflict over the breakaway Azerbaijani region of
Nagorno-Karabakh. Sarkisian spokesman Armen Arzumanian told RFE/RL
ahead of the summit that no such meeting was planned at Yalta.

Aliyev and Sarkisian last met on June 17 in St. Petersburg, for talks
hosted by Medvedev. That meeting was followed by the most serious
Armenian-Azerbaijani cease-fire violation in Karabakh in more than
two years, which heightened tensions between the conflicting sides.

Four Armenian soldiers and one Azerbaijani soldier were killed in
fighting on the region’s “line of contact” the night of June18.

The United States, Russia, and France have urged both sides to exercise
restraint and iron out their differences on a framework peace accord
proposed by the OSCE’s Minsk Group. They hope to broker further
progress in the negotiating process at an meeting this week in Almaty,
Kazakhstan between the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers.

However, recriminations traded between Baku and Yerevan in recent days
have thrown doubt on the chances of a successful Almaty meeting. The
Armenian Foreign Ministry on July 9 strongly denied Azerbaijani claims
that the Almaty talks will focus on details of an Armenian troop
withdrawal from Azerbaijani territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh.

A spokesman for Bako Sahakian — the leader of the self-proclaimed
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic — said today that the authorities in
Stepanakert have no expectations from the Almaty meeting because of
Azerbaijan’s “extremely nonconstructive” position.

Davit Babayan told RFE/RL that “[Baku’s position] leaves no room for
the search for a mutually acceptable compromise solution.”

Babayan pointed to the Azerbaijani leaders’ insistence that the
principle of territorial integrity take precedence over that of
peoples’ self-determination as championed by the Armenian side.

“They must understand one thing,” Babayan said. “For Karabakh, a
return to 1988, in terms of both the status and territory, is out of
the question.”

From: A. Papazian

APPEAL FOR “MARCH 1” WAS DENIED

04:00 pm | July 13, 2010 | Politics

Authorized representative of the families of the 10 victims of March
1 Artak Zeynalyan was no longer given a chance to ask questions at
the RA Appeals Court. Judge Grisha Melik-Sargsyan said there was
no detainee or injured party to ask questions to in response to the
plaintiff’s calls to ask questions.

In an hour, the RA Appeals Court examined the investigation of the
appeal filed by the successors of Tigran Khachatryan, Gor Kloyan
and Armen Farmanyan who were shot and killed by the “Cheryomukha-7”
device on March 1.

The victims’ families appealed the verdict reached by the first
instance court of Kentron and Nork-Marash districts, which considered
the appeal against the lack of activity of the Special Investigative
Service and the RA Prosecutor General’s office as groundless.

The defendant continued to claim that the preliminary inquiry hadn’t
finished yet and their appeal was groundless.

Judge Grisha Melik-Sargsyan decided to deny the case at the
consultation room since it was groundless.

Until then, the judge tried to find out from the defendant when the
preliminary inquiry would end and what the perspectives were.

Prosecutor Harutyun Harutyunyan mentioned that preliminary inquiry
is still in progress and couldn’t say when it would end.

Contrary to that, Gor Kloyan’s father Sargis Kloyan made an
announcement. He is certain that the preliminary inquiry is 100% over.

“We know the names and last names of the four policemen, the names
and last names of those who gave the command, the hour they fired,
the device they used and we know that it was a banned device and they
had no right to use it. Go to the military unit, ask them who gave
the weapon and everything will be clear.”

Let us remind that no separate case on the murders of the 10 victims
of March 1 has been brought up.

From: A. Papazian

“DIRECTORS WITHOUT LIMITS” FORUM KICKED OFF TODAY

Aysor
July 13 2010
Armenia

Today in the morning the regional cooperation forum titled “Directors
without limits” in the frameworks of the 7th “Golden Apricot” film
festival was opened.

The forum “Directors without limits” gives an opportunity to the
directors to present projects which during the master classes will be
worked out by the famous film workers and will be brought to a final
state. The forum is aimed at working out all the presented projects
and to create international movie samples.

This year there are directors presented on the forum from Georgia,
Turkey, Spain and other countries. The master classes will be conducted
by the professionals and the honorable guests of the festival from
different countries.

The patrons of the mentioned forum are the European Union’s delegation
in Armenia and the U.S. embassy in Armenia, which has provided 50
thousand USD. The main partner of the festival is “VivaCell-MTS”
company.

From: A. Papazian

ARMENIA’S SPEAKER EXPRESSES CONCERN OVER INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY INADEQUATE RESPONSE IN BRUSSELS

Panorama
July 13 2010
Armenia

Armenian National Assembly Speaker Hovik Abrahamyan, ho is paying a
working visit to Brussels, met with the President of the Belgian Senate
Armand de Decker July 12. Speaker presented Armenia’s stances on the
Nagorno-Karabakn issue, as well as its relations with neighboring
counties.

According to the NA information and public relations department, Hovik
Abrahamyan reiterated that the issues should be solved through peaceful
talks which is very much hindered by Azerbaijan’s bellicose statements.

He expressed concern that the international community does not respond
adequately to Azerbaijan’s actions.

Later on the same day Hovik Abrahamyan had a meeting with the European
Parliament MPs, co-rapporteurs on Armenia Tomasz Poreba and Charles
Tannock. He presented the Nagorno-Karabakh negotiating process and
the developments on Armenian-Turkish normalization.

Poreba and Tannock assured that they will do their best to present
impartial information to the European Parliament on Armenia and the
disposition of the Armenian side.

From: A. Papazian

WORK IS NOT TRANSPARENT?

July 13, 2010

On July 13, Secretary of the National Security Council, Chair of the
Inter-departmental Commission Coordinating Cooperation between Armenia
and the European Union Artur Baghdasaryan received the delegation
headed by Head of the EU Advisory Group’s Evaluation Team to Armenia
Ian Grand.

Artur Baghdasaryan expressed gratitude for the EU Advisory Group’s
support to Armenia in implementing the plan of actions for cooperation
between Armenia and the European Union.

“To make the Advisory Group’s activities more effective, it is
necessary to diversify the group’s activities and ensure a maximum
level of transparency,” said Artur Baghdasaryan, attaching importance
to the fact that the experience in Armenia will soon be applied in
other countries as well.

Grand accepted Artur Baghdasaryan’s suggestion that Armenia should not
only have the right to select the advisors, but be able to evaluate the
effectiveness of its activities. The interlocutors discussed issues
related to the implementation of the plan of actions for cooperation
between Armenia and the European Union.

Information provided by the press office of the Secretary of the
National Security Council.

From: A. Papazian

KARABAKH TALKS SHOULD CONTINUE – AZERBAIJANI COMMENTATOR

news.az
July 13 2010
Azerbaijan

Rasim Musabeyov Armenian-Azerbaijani talks on Karabakh have to
continue, even though they have yet to be productive, Azerbaijani
analyst Rasim Musabeyov has said.

He was responding to the view of Armenian analyst Stepan Grigoryan,
expressed as part of public debates at the 1news.az Political
Discussions Club.

“I agree with my colleague Stepan Grigoryan that the talks, even
though they have not been productive so far, should continue,”
Musabeyov said. “Difficult talks are always better than no talks and
especially better than war. But we must understand that unproductive
talks undermine confidence in a possible peace settlement. After all,
military capability is growing in parallel and in recent years has
considerably strengthened.

“Many people in Azerbaijan think that the Armenians are holding talks
only to protract the process and make the world and Azerbaijan accept
the new ‘status quo’.”

“Stepan Grigoryan says that Azerbaijan’s attempt to extract unilateral
concessions from Armenia on the liberation of the occupied territories
will fail. But this is a question of compromise, not unilateral
concessions,” Musabeyov said.

He did not agree with Grigoryan that Azerbaijan is strongly
exaggerating Armenians’ dependence on Moscow as well as the importance
of the Russian factor in the Karabakh conflict settlement.

“I would like to draw attention to the fact that none of the Minsk
Group co-chairs, even Armenia’s ally Russia, delved into the details
of which side was the initiator of the recent armed incident [on the
contact line separating Armenian and Azerbaijani troops]. The Armenian
public are told that this is a clear signal that the world will not
allow Azerbaijan to restore its territorial integrity by force.

“Whether this should be done now, whether the results will be
commensurate with the expense and losses, is another question. These
are the conditions, not international reaction, that make Baku seek
a solution to the problem at the negotiating table. Unfortunately,
there is an alternative to peace talks and it is a new war. This
alternative is unacceptable to me, and to my colleague Mr Grigoryan,
but as an analyst, I cannot rule out such a turn of events, especially
if the talks do not emerge from the current blind alley.”

From: A. Papazian

THE WEATHER CONDITIONS, FOOD PRODUCTS AND THE PRICES

Aysor
July 13 2010
Armenia

This year the weather conditions were not favorable enough for the
local food products, the spring frosts, the hail, rains, and the heat
now have left their influence on the fruit production and vegetable
production.

The RA agriculture minister Gerasim Alaverdyan speaking about the
damages of the nature stated that this year the apricot crop is around
25 – 30 tones while last year it was around 85 thousand tones.

As for the compensation of the countrymen the Agriculture Minister
mentioned that the agricultural security system is not being used in
Armenia yet, however there will be provided some help.

Gerasim Alaverdian also spoke about some diseases that are spread
within different spices of vegetables. He also mentioned that after
the continuous rains there is found out tomato cancer, yellow rust
of wheat and other diseases.

“There are regions where the tomato has given seedling,” the Minister
stated and added that there are some medicines and the countrymen
are using them to struggle against it.

From: A. Papazian

THREE-DAY VISIT BEGINS

July 13, 2010

On July 13, the delegation headed by Foreign Minister of Poland
Radoslav Sikorsky will pay an official three-day visit to Armenia at
the invitation of Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan.

During the visit, Poland’s Foreign Minister is scheduled to meet
with RA President Serzh Sargsyan, Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan and
Foreign Minister Tigran Sargsyan.

Sikorsky will also lay a wreath at Tsitsernakaberd memorial complex.

From: A. Papazian